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Yesterday, our daughters spent part of the afternoon painting outside on our patio.  When it came time to put away the paints, our 4-year-old had a stack of wet paintings that needed to be hung up and dried.  “Aha,” I thought, “I’ll just get some twine and clothespins and hang them on the deck.”  My next thought, however, was, “Twine and clothespins?  What is this - Little House on the Prairie? We don’t even have twine and clothespins!”

So I created a hanging wall with the contemporary equivalent: DSL cable and binder clips.  Problem solved.

Pictures drying on the deck

DSL cable as twine

Binder clips as clothespins

There is a new essay called The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar that is making the rounds in higher education discussions.  I think the subtitle of the article sums up its thesis well:

Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers

He is writing primarily about elite universities, the same ones that ESN is trying to transform.  Deresiewicz was on the faculty at Yale for 10 years, so he has some background in this.

His argument has several points, but here’s one that stuck out at me.

An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort.  [snip]

Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

I think Deresiewicz glosses over another reason why elite universities rob you of the opportunite “not to be rich”: student loans. I was accepted to Yale when I was a senior in high school, but even with financial aid, I would have need to take out something like $20,000 per year in student loans to make it work.  The University of Louisville offered me a full ride; between UofL and my master’s degree at Regent (where I also received a scholarship, and where my parents graciously paid for my thesis), I was able to complete my entire education to date with less than $10,000 total in student loans.  My senior year in high school, for some unknown reason, I was convinced that I wanted to be a high school principal (I still don’t know why), and the prospect of starting a career as a teacher with over $100,000 in student loan debt did not appeal to me.

Over at Slate.com, Meghan O’Rourke has a nice tribute to Anne of Green Gables, which has been published in a new Modern Library edition.  O’Rourke does a good job, but she starts her article playing devil’s advocate: why should Anne of Green Gables, of all things, receive this kind of treatment?

To some, this canonical promotion of a writer who would probably now be classified as a Y.A. (young adult) author might seem preposterous. To certain left-leaning cultural theorists who won’t embrace a heroine with a less-than-revolutionary CV—Anne, once the Island’s best young scholar, chooses to become a devoted wife and mother of six—the Modern Library’s decision may appear to be a reactionary cave-in to nostalgic sentimentality.

Compare this to Deresiewicz’s point about elite education: using a bright mind, or an elite education, to become something as pedestrian as a mother is, well, “wasteful,” when you could be doing the “real work” of becoming rich or “successful.”  There’s nothing wrong with being a banker, hedge fund manager, or what have you, but let’s be very careful here.  The Victorians elevated motherhood to an idol; we have lowered to a calling of last resort.  I had a feminist professor in college who liked to read aloud articles that described how much a mother would be paid if all of her jobs were added up (e.g. chaffeur, personal shopper, maid, etc.).  I think she thought she was being flattering to mothers by noting their worth.  And she was, but she was also buying into our society’s preoccupation with salary as a measure of importance.

Well, this is quite possibly our final Monday as a family with two kids.  Elizabeth is due to give birth to our son this Friday, May 2 (which is also my mother’s birthday).  Agatha was right on time - born at 8:00 am on her due date - while Ginger was two weeks late.  Just about everything is ready - we have a name picked out (it’s a secret), a crib, a freshly painted pirate-themed nursery.  Not everyone is ready, though: Elizabeth asked Ginger what she thought of baby brother.  She shook her head and said, “No like!”

In other news, we received yet another free television, this time an HDTV from Elizabeth’s aunt!  While there, we also received several family heirlooms that had belonged to Elizabeth’s grandmother.  I claimed this incredible Gillette Aristocrat safety razor.  Elizabeth insists that I not use it, but, if I did, it came with several dozen extra razors.  

If I did decide to convert to “wet shaving,” at least I have some good guidance from Andy Crouch. 

Occasionally, I talk to people who are a little put off by the name of the Emerging Scholars Network.  ”I’m not a scholar!” they say, and they don’t think of their children in that way either. 

But an interesting study was just released by the Dept. of Education, entitled “Parent Expectations and Student Achievement.”  Here’s how the Chronicle of Higher Education ($) summarized it:

The Education Department released a report on Tuesday that offers new insights into the factors influencing whether parents expect their children to enroll at four-year colleges, and suggests that many young people who could succeed at such institutions are not being encouraged by their families or schools to apply.

The study found that parental expectations vary widely between different races and income levels, and that many parents think their children won’t be able to finish college when their grades suggest otherwise. 

I had a professor in college who was an incredible teacher.  It made sense, because educational theory was one of his specialties!  He freely admitted that he was not a good student in either high school or college - he had a 2.7 GPA as an undergrad - and he applied to grad school almost on a whim. Once in grad school, though, when he was able to focus on a subject that he was truly interested in, his grades took off.  He earned a PhD and is now a tenured professor.  He also taught me one of my first lessons in academic grace, but that’s a story for another time. 

What are your expectations, either for yourself or your children? 

The use of abortion to choose the gender of a child has long been a concern of the pro-life movement, especially in countries like China or India where cultural and legal norms make both gender selection and abortion more acceptable.  A new study is suggesting that some ethnic groups - specifically Chinese, Korean, and Indian - in the United States may also be using abortion to choose the gender of their children. William Saletan of Slate.com has a good writeup of the study and some implications. 

However, the conclusion of the article is a bit confusing, 

If you think of yourself as a techno-progressive—someone who believes, as Barack Obama does, that “maximizing the power of technology” will help fix everything from energy to theenvironment to health care—the increase in sex selection should give you pause. Technology can facilitate regression as easily as it facilitates progress.

OK - I’m good with that.  I thought that “technology=progress=unlimited good” went out with the Victorians, but that’s fine if people are just now waking up to reality.  The rest of that paragraph is a bit odd. 

But if you think of yourself as a pro-life conservative, the data should humble you, too. In the populations in which it has increased, sex selection isn’t a newfangled perversion. It’s a custom, and a patriarchal one at that. If the sex-selection story teaches us all to be a bit more skeptical of both tradition and technology, that’ll be real progress.

Eh?  Perhaps some pro-life conservatives base their position of “patriarchal custom,” but I’m not aware of custom or patriarchy or tradition - much less Chinese, Korean, or Indian tradition - being used as a foundation for pro-life arguments in the United States.  

This recent story - about a Vietnamese man who runs an orphanage for unwanted children next door to an abortion clinic in Vietnam - notes that he receives donations from “Christian and Buddhist organizations.” I have not encountered any Buddhist or Hindu approaches to abortion - either for or against - so I would be very interested in learning more about how non-Western religions regard abortion. 

Tonight, we set up our Christmas tree. This will be the last Christmas for us in our current house, as we are moving the very week after!

Agatha took this picture of the ornament with her face on it. She’s a talented photographer (especially for a 4-year-old), but she has a bit of an ego.

And here’s the final product!

At Agatha’s insistence, we started a new Christmas tradition this year: gathering around the tree and singing a song (”Jingle Bells,” in this case). As our family is only four this year, and the tree is in a corner, we are glad that we selected a smallish tree this year, bought from the tree folks who normally sell out of an old RV at the putt-putt course, but this year had to move to a spot on Dixie Highway.

The Faculty Ministry Leadeship Team (on which I serve, as part of my role with the Emerging Scholars Network) is reading Douglas Sloan’s book Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and Higher Education. I’m keeping a reading journal on my other blog (parts one, two, and three, so far are up). 

One passage, in particular, strikes me as something I’ve been thinking over for some time.  Sloan describes how, after World War II, universities redefined “knowledge” into, basically, the “higher utilianarianism” of scientific, technical, and social research, and the “lower utilitarianism” of “community service and vocational training.”  As a result, there was “very little concern…for an education devoted to the deepening and enrichment of personal and cultural existence.”

Elizabeth and I are just beginning our childrens’ formal education.  Over the last few years, I have wished that my early education included more of the “great books” in the Western tradition.  I have been jealous of the ways that my poetic heroes - Eliot, Auden, Wilbur - were/are able to draw (seemingly) effortlessly from a depth of cultural knowledge that I had to google just to understand.  I’ve been attracted to the classical Christian education movement as a corrective to what I see as gaps in my personal education. 

Just this morning, I was talking with a friend at my other job about the nature of reason.  His work deals quite a bit with debunking scams and seeing through false claims, so he has been attracted to skeptical societies and logical arguments.  Even though he himself is a musician and writer, he seems to lean more to the naturalism favored by so many professional skeptics.  In my experience, hardened skeptics have become so accustomed to fighting false beliefs in UFOs, magic potions, and con artists, that they fail to recognize the truth in philosophy, theology, and religion.  In fact, they often lump the two groups together as mutually “unprovable.”

A few days ago, on Jacob Two-Two (that’s right: today’s post draws from the very center of the Western canon), Jacob’s father referred to him as “my biological creation.”

 What a strange way of thinking about a child, especially from a father.  Whenever I have created something with my hands - a poem, say, or a bookshelf - there has been a defined process that I can describe, in which I can clearly point to the actions that I took to reach the final product.  I am working with pre-existing materials (the subjects of the poem, the wood for the bookshelf), but there is “sweat equity” that I contribute. 

In comparison, my contribution to “creating” a child seems trivial.

The Bible depicts children as a gift from God, and that holds true with my experience.  When my wife give birth to our first daughter, I felt like I was experiencing a miracle: a new person came into being.  I could never have done that myself.  I hope that I’m not stretching the exegesis too far by applying this psalm to my two daughters:

¹ Unless the LORD builds the house,
       its builders labor in vain.
       Unless the LORD watches over the city,
       the watchmen stand guard in vain.

    ² In vain you rise early
       and stay up late,
       toiling for food to eat—
       for he grants sleep to those he loves.

    ³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
       children a reward from him.

    ⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
       are sons born in one’s youth.

    ⁵ Blessed is the man
       whose quiver is full of them.
       They will not be put to shame
       when they contend with their enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127)

Six years ago yesterday, I met Debbie Erickson on the way to our first Hebrew class of the year at Regent College. We were both biking down University Drive at about 7:30 am PST. “Have you heard?” Debbie asked me. By that time, both towers have come down. Because I had not turned on a TV or radio that morning, this is the first time I’ve heard about anything. We continue on to class.

That Tuesday was the first “real” day of class that semester. Tuesdays are the day for chapel and the massive communal meal simply called “Soup,” when about 300 members of the Regent community sing, pray, and worship together, then enjoy military-size pots of soup. That Tuesday was also the first official day of my role as editor of the school newspaper.

Four years ago yesterday, Elizabeth gave birth to our first daughter, Agatha, exactly on her due date. In addition to remembrances of “the” 9/11, the news stations on TV were showing this ridiculous video all day long:

What a world.

One of the assertions of certain postmodernists is that concepts don’t exist until language creates them.  For example, if you didn’t have a word for “love,” then not only would you not be able to recognize, define, or discern love, but love itself would not really exist for you.

Heady concept, but it’s something I think about a lot with my almost-2-year-old daughter.  She is at the stage where she is learning new words almost daily, and it’s amazing how she begins to communicate her awareness of the world.  One day she learns the word “apple” (OK, it’s more like “bop-bul), and the next day there are apples everywhere - in books, on wallpaper, on TV.  She sees apples that we completely overlook, because (in my pop child development reasoning) the apple is something that she has a word and concept for, so she picks out the apple instantly.

Now, I believe that apples existed before my daughter discovered the word for them - she ate them all the time without worrying about what to call them - but her experience teaches me about the way that I learn and perceive the world.  As I gain new concepts, I understand the world in new ways.  For example, for years I’ve heard people refer to “Cape Cod” houses.  Just this week, I’m embarrassed to say, I made the connection between the term “Cape Cod” and an actual Cape Cod-style house.  Now I have a new way of thinking about houses.

I have noticed, too, that the literature and film that I consume affects how I view the world.  Elizabeth and I have been watching The Sopranos, and I have noticed that I have to work to control my language more carefully, else I revert to my middle school ways of talking (my 13-year-old mouth = Tony Soprano’s).   When I am constant in my devotions, and reading the Bible daily, carefully and reflectively, the Bible’s concepts of the world - its language for reality - infuse my daily life.

I was blessed to have been given A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People during my introduction as a new InterVarsity staff member. The book provides readings for each week, including weekly readings in the Psalms.  This week, my Psalm has been Psalm 1.  Because of my background in literature and poetry, it often strikes me how powerful the psalmists regard the Word of God to be.  Psalm 1 begins by saying what a righteous man does not do (i.e. allow himself to conform to sinners), then switches to his positive traits:

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

There is nothing special about the blessed man, except that he loves the law - the words - of God.  The language of God centers him, blesses him, and changes his whole life.
Perhaps these postmodernists are on to something.